Grand Junction Man Shot at Police

Last Tuesday, shots were heard echoing from the streets around Patterson. The shots being fired had many close calls that almost hit citizens and police officers although there were no injuries reported. Shots first began to ring at 12:08 in the afternoon and law enforcement quickly came to the scene. While trying to locate the shooter the traffic scanner said that the shooter was close to St. Mary’s Pavilion, but couldn’t quite see where the shots were exactly coming from. Throughout the shooting, businesses and clinics went into lockdown including the hospital which was only a few blocks away from the shooting. Once the police got there the shooter, Michael Viegas, started firing and nearly hitting a police officer. That helped determine exactly where the shooter was coming from. In the middle of this all was a FedEx driver. One of the bullets flew past the driver and punctured the trucks’ tires and rims. He then returned to the apartments just off the road and fired off 12 more shots from a rifle. He eventually came out willingly from the apartments, but still wasn’t cooperating with the police. After a 10 minute stand off with Viegas, law enforcement officers had to taser him. After arresting him, police searched his apartment finding 2 firearms and many bottles of whiskey, beer, and vodka, many of the bottles being empty or close to being.

Kate Fricke, a freshman at Palisade said, “This was such a scary thing to hear about especially how close many of the shots came to hitting innocent people. I’m really glad everyone is safe.”

He is now being faced with charges of first degree murder, attempted first degree murder of a peace officer, first degree assault,